Product Mix (Assortment)

1) Product mix – assortment of product lines and individual product offerings a company sells
2) A product mix (also called a productassortment) is the set of all products and items a particular seller offers for sale
There are four main approaches to the product mix decisions formation:
1) the competitive interaction approach, growing out of product positioning theory;
2) the desired portfolio approach, growing out of relationship marketing theory;
3) the volume-oriented resource utilization approach, growing out the theory of economies of scale;
4) the constraint-based resource-utilization approach, growing out of the theory of constraints .
A company’s product mix has a certain width, length, depth, and consistency.
The width of a product mix refers to how many different product lines the company
carries.
The length of a product mix refers to the total number of items in the mix.
The depth of a product mix refers to how many variants are offered of each product in the line.
The consistency of the product mix describes how closely related the various product lines are
in end use, production requirements, distribution channels, or some other way .

Assortment — the composition and ratio of individual types of products of an enterprise, industry, or group of goods. The assortment of products characterizes its composition in terms of grade and quality.
A set of different groups, types, and grades of goods is united by consumer, trade, or production characteristics and sold by a business entity at trade facilities.
The term assortment is used mainly for consumer goods. Production and technical products and provision of services are defined by the term nomenclature.[Шмиг, Р., Боярчук, В., Добрянський, І., Барбаш, В.]
The assortment is wholesale and retail. The group assortment is formed (grouped) according to specific characteristics - product knowledge, the principle of integrated consumption of goods, or the needs of certain social groups of consumers (goods for cultural and household purposes, goods for sports, household chemicals, etc.). Assortment sets of goods are distinguished: trade set — for a different store, its section, or departments of a trade organization.[Скрипник, М.]

Sources:

⠀ Kotler, P., Keller, K. L.(2012). Marketing management(14th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall (p. 358)

⠀ Andrews, C. R., Cannon, H. M., Cannon,J. N., Law, J. T. (2009). Beyond the Profitable Product Death Spiral: Managing Product Mix in an Environment of Constrained Resources. DevelopmentsinBusinessSimulationandExperientialLearning: Proceedings of the Annual

⠀ Kotler, P., Keller, K. L.(2012). Marketing management(14th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall (p. 358-359)

Скрипник, М. (1985). Українська радянська енциклопедія. Київ: Головна редакція Української радянської енциклопедії.

Шмиг, Р., Боярчук, В., Добрянський, І., Барбаш, В. (2010). Термінологічний словник-довідник з будівництва та архітектури. Львів: Львівський національний аграрний університет.